ChefSums: Recipe Costing & GP

Macaroni cheese: how much it costs to make, per portion

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Ten pub portions of baked macaroni cheese: macaroni in a mature-cheddar béchamel, topped with more cheese and breadcrumbs and baked until bubbling. Costed from JJ Foodservice wholesale prices dated 9 October 2026.

Baked macaroni cheese in a bowl
Photo: Macaroni and cheese (2) (cropped) by Sumeet Jain from San Francisco, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped and resized. A licensed photo of the dish, not the exact costing below.
Ingredients per portion£0.76
Batch of 10£7.64
Menu price · ChefSums' sample restaurant menu£12.50 inc VAT (£10.42 ex) · 93% GP
Lowest price · 68% GP£2.87 inc VAT (£2.39 ex)

The menu price is the one ChefSums uses for this dish on its sample restaurant menu, a realistic UK menu price. The lowest price is the one that just reaches 68% GP, the UK food GP benchmark (UKHospitality × Christie & Co, 2022: 65.9–69% food GP across every segment). It covers the ingredients at a normal margin, not staff, rent or energy, and most cafés, pubs and takeaways charge more for simple dishes. Check what places near you charge. GP is worked out on the ex-VAT price.

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Ingredients and cost, 10 portions

IngredientPack pricePack sizeUsedCost
Macaroni£8.995000 g1000 g£1.80
Unsalted butter£30.495000 g120 g£0.73
Plain flour£12.4916000 g120 g£0.09
Whole milk£1.692000 ml2000 ml£1.69
Mature cheddar, grated£11.992000 g500 g£3.00
Breadcrumbs£9.993000 g80 g£0.27
Table salt£10.996000 g10 g£0.02
Ground black pepper£15.991000 g3 g£0.05
Batch total£7.64
Per portion (÷ 10)£0.76

Cost per line is pack price × (amount used ÷ pack size), the same sum the tool runs. Change one pack price and every line that uses it moves.

What it really costs: waste and staff time

Ingredients£0.76
Waste allowance, 5% (trim, ends, the odd one binned)£0.04
Staff time: 15 min hands-on for the batch of 10 at £12.71/hr + 25% on-cost£0.40
Food, waste and staff per portion£1.20

At the sample restaurant menu price (£10.42 ex VAT) that is 12% of the price, before rent, energy and everything else. Many UK sites aim to keep food plus staff (prime cost) at or under 60–65% of sales. The staff line counts hands-on prep only, not unattended cooking, and uses the April 2026 National Living Wage; put your own rate, minutes and waste in the calculator's real cost section or the prime cost calculator. Every dish side by side: the UK dish cost index.

Method

  1. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water for 2 minutes less than the pack time; drain.
  2. Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, then whisk in the milk a ladle at a time and simmer for 5 minutes.
  3. Off the heat, stir in 400 g of the cheese and season.
  4. Mix with the pasta, tip into a gastronorm, top with the remaining cheese and the breadcrumbs, and bake at 200 °C for 20-25 minutes.

Costing notes

Cheese is the biggest cost line, and the cheapest way to make the dish taste more cheesy is a stronger cheddar, not more of it. A teaspoon of English mustard in the sauce does the same job. Two litres of milk is a full 2 L bottle, the cheapest way to buy it at wholesale.

Where the prices came from

JJ Foodservice collection prices as shown on its public search pages on 9 October 2026 (delivery runs about £1-2 a case higher). A few lines JJ did not list in that day's searches reuse the dated prices already on our other starter recipes (7 September 2026, JJ Foodservice or Tesco retail, marked on each line). JJ does not label VAT on most lines: raw food is zero-rated in the UK, while soft drinks, alcohol, confectionery and some ingredients carry standard-rate VAT. Your supplier's price is the one that matters: open the recipe and type it in.

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